


a hard headed woman, a soft hearted man

by lugubrious



Series: rebelcaptain oneshots [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oneshot, Violence, kinda??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 04:11:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10654653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lugubrious/pseuds/lugubrious
Summary: No one expected the state library to be such a good squat for a zombie apocalypse.[Rogue One + Zombies]





	a hard headed woman, a soft hearted man

**Author's Note:**

> i honestly had a lot of fun writing this so i hope you have a lot of fun reading it

No one expected the state library to be such a good squat for a zombie apocalypse. In the movies, the places they stay are much more impressive – army bases or giant castles, not quaint brick buildings with fading paper-chains strung from the ceiling. But the library has heavy, solid wooden book shelves to push in front of the door and a waterproof basement, so it’s pretty good in a pinch.

Jyn still hates it.

To be fair, she would have hated any sanctuary she’d landed in. Staying in one place for so long (seven months, twelve days) just isn’t her style. She’d been on the go for about three years before everything went to shit and now she’s just stuck in this musty-smelling building.

‘Erso!’

Company could be worse though.

She turns on her heel to see Cassian making his way towards her. When they started, there were just six of them in the library – Jyn, the librarian Baze and his husband Chirrut, a harassed-looking aeronautics student Bodhi, Cassian and Kay. Now the population is over thirty, everyone huddled up together because space is starting to get tight. Personal space is a luxury of the past. And so are showers. It’s a blessing in disguise that the air is thick with the smell of old wounds and decaying flesh, because it neatly blankets all bodily scents.

Welcome to the zombie apocalypse. Women no longer have to fear flatulence.

'Erso.’

'What?’

Cassian jerks his head up.

'Roof,’ he says, and she nods. She knows the drill. Jyn follows him up the stairs to the re-enforced iron door and steps out into the cool night air.

The roof used to be her favorite place in the whole library, but now whenever she comes here she can smell the blood on the walls despite having scrubbed them clean herself.

They lean over the bricks and peer down to where the zee’s have gathered below, en masse as usual.

See, no one calls them zombies. Frankly, no one has the time. 'Zombie’ is a whole two syllables long, and when you’re being overrun by the living dead you don’t have the precious seconds to spare, so they get nicknames. Zee’s. Zomb’s. One guy called them abominations under the Lord, but that kind of defeated the point of cutting down on time. He was eaten because he took too long to get up the library wall - go figure.

That’s the main purpose of roof duty. Baze set it up, the rope and pulley, eventually installing a wooden platform to lift people who couldn’t manage it themselves. But they haven’t had anyone new coming up to them in a long time. The last had been a week ago, a mother and her child. They lifted the boy up. The mother was bitten in the process. Jyn isn’t often grateful that her mother is dead but that night she thanked every star in the sky Lyra wasn’t there to see her daughter pull the trigger.

Most of the time, roof duty results in nothing more exciting than the occasional gurgling screech from the zee’s below. But Baze thinks they’re drying out now – losing the wetness that used to permeate every move, every sound they made. Jyn is glad about that. It’s the wetness that keeps her awake at night.

She settles in her designated corner on the rooftop and pulls out of her pocket the battered ipod that has, against all odds, survived along with her. Cassian, on the other side, glances at the chunky device and shakes his head.

‘What?’ Jyn rests the ipod in the bowl she’d found and turns the speakers up as high as they can go. It’s not the same as the CD’s she used to listen to, but it’s better than the sound the ipod produces alone. A hollow, deadened sound that’s an injustice to the music leaking into the air.

‘ _Well since my baby left me,_ _I found a new place to dwell // It's down at the end of lonely street at Heartbreak Hotel._ ’

‘You couldn’t have put any other albums on there?’

Jyn considers this. ‘Nah,’ she says.

Cassian scoffs, and Jyn closes her eyes, tapping her fingers on her knee in time to the melody.

‘He’s called the king for a reason, you know.’

When she peeks out at Cassian he’s looking away from her, gazing over the ruined city – but she can see the corner of his mouth is curling up. It’s the same conversation they always have when she puts Elvis on. But even Cassian can’t argue, _Heartbreak Hotel_ is more fun to listen to than the shuffling foot-steps of the slowly decaying. Jyn gets to her feet and leans over the building, looking out at the horizon. It’s nearly four in the morning, the place where the dark sky meets the hard earth is being diluted, hard white light seeping into the navy blue. It’s cool and quiet.

Jyn aches to leave.

It seems cruel that she can look out from her tower and see, not too far away, stretches of land without the press of dead bodies. It would be so easy, she thinks, to get past them. To take off, go anywhere. Not even with a destination or goal in mind. At least zee’s were unlikely to arrest her for falling asleep on a park bench. Staying stationary is getting harder and harder each day. If she wakes up in the same place one more time, she might shed her own skin in frustration.

Then Jyn abruptly changes her train of thought because _that_ mental image leads to _another_ mental image, and not one she likes to dwell on – _skin tears so easy, so flakey, underneath muscles glisten slippery and_ – ‘If you could leave, would you?’

Cassian looks up. Jyn is standing, rigid, staring at him. Her face feels waxy in the moonlight, ready to melt or crack, whichever comes first. Jyn can feel in her chest, her heartbeat. She’s good at… at not thinking. About things. About whatever it is she needs to not think about. She has a cave, a dark hole deep in the recesses of her mind where she shoves everything she _needs to not think about_ and most of the time that holds firm. But every now and again something crawls out, naked and slimy, and Jyn has to speak loudly and listen desperately so the noise from outside will drown the creatures that live inside her head.

(sometimes, when everything is very quiet, she wonders what it would be like. To just put your arm out into the crowd. It might not even be painful.)

    ‘ _You’re the devil in disguise // Oh yes you are.’_

Cassian tilts his head to the side, considering. One of the reason’s he’s a good person to be on duty with is he is unflappable. He deals with every and all situations calmly, practically. They’re often paired off together. Jyn is reckless to the point of self-endangerment and Cassian’s pragmatism borders callousness to the casual observer. (It’s not of course - Jyn knows this because the first time he shot someone he didn’t sleep for days, didn’t move from the roof. Just stayed there. Keeping watch, he said. Mourning, more like. Now whenever they’re forced to end a life Jyn stays up there with him. He never asks her too. She never leaves his side.) They balance each other out, and together have probably saved more lives than they would have apart.

‘Yes,’ he says. Then, conversationally, ‘You could never find a cure trapped up here.’

Jyn raises an eyebrow. She doesn’t say that she doubts there will ever be a cure. That they’ll fight to the last and then die, and the zee’s will be all that’s left. She’s said it all before. And Cassian has said all his pieces before, too. It was because of that disagreement that they ended up on the roof together in the first place – Baze sent them up there like naughty children. Jyn’s face had been red from anger, Cassian’s dark eyes burned into her.

Now they know better than to delve into that particular topic, most of the time. Unless Jyn is particularly bored. Or if she needs to be distracted.

‘You would leave.’ It isn’t a question, and Jyn is momentarily side-tracked, bristling at the quiet confidence in Cassian’s voice. _You don’t know anything about me,_ says a very small voice. It’s not true of course. He knows her better than anyone has in over eight years. That doesn’t mean she has to like it. (But she does like it, and she likes that she knows him too.)

‘That’s no secret,’ she grumbles. Cassian snorts.

‘You can say that again.’

She raises her eyebrows. ‘What’re you implying?’

‘You’re not the subtlest of people.’

‘Fuck you,’ Jyn says. ‘I’m incredibly subtle.’

Cassian shakes his head. He doesn’t grin very often, and when he does it’s only small, but she can see his teeth in the slowly building morning light. ‘You’re not.’

‘Well, I’m not trying to hide the fact that I want to leave.’

‘But if you _were_ hiding it?’

‘Then you would _never_ know,’ she says, leaning forwards menacingly. Then she moves back and shakes her head. Cassian is doing his own version of laughing at her, which means his eyes are very bright and his smile is a little sharp but not menacingly so. It makes the world go shiny. Jyn scowls. ‘Screw you Andor.’

Suddenly a sound emits from the tin can lying on its side next to Cassian. It’s one of those old play-phones kid’s used to make, and when Jyn first saw it up there it’d made everything seem so surreal. Like they were all children playing make believe. Then Baze had informed her, through the tin can, of a young man slowly being eaten out the front of the hospital and everything was jagged and real again.

Cassian picks up the can and presses it to his ear. She turns down the volume on the ipod and waits for whoever it is on the other end of the line to finish relaying their message. It doesn’t take long. Cassian says,

‘Got it,’ and puts the can down. He turns to Jyn. ‘Chirrut wants us to check the carrots.’

She rolls her eyes. ‘He doesn’t have to remind us every time.’

Cassian opens his mouth, ready to reply when on the ground – someone screams.

Instantly Jyn is on her feet. She leans out over the ground again, looking through the writhing mess of bodies for the source of the noise, and spots it within moments.

‘Cassian –’

He grabs the rope and throws it over the side to where a little girl is standing, screaming. How she got there, how she got close to the library without the zee’s getting her is only made apparent after Jyn sees, a little way off, a crowd of the undead and a patch of earth slowly taking on a dark red colour. Scraps of cloth fleck the air, and then a hand is visible in the centre of the crowd. Jyn looks away, back at the girl. 

‘Hey!’ she calls down. The zee’s are deaf, so noise isn’t a problem. But they can – somehow – sense human presences, so as soon as their latest feast is over the girl will become their next target. ‘Hey!’

The girl, still screaming, looks around wildly before spotting Jyn. Her face is crumpled and she’s clutching a ragged teddy-bear in one hand. Jyn takes the rope offered to her by Cassian without looking and begins to lower it down.

‘I need you to listen to me,’ she shouts. ‘Grab this and we’ll pull you to safety.’

The girl gives no sign whether she understands. She just stands there, her anguished cries pulling at something deep in Jyn’s gut. The rope is soon extended as far as it will go, the loop tied at the end just brushing the dusty earth.

‘Put your foot in the hole and we’ll pull you up!’ Jyn says, and apparently, the girl is listening to her because she stumbles forwards, reaching out unsteadily and hooks her foot through the lip. ‘Ok,’ Jyn murmurs, watching to make sure she’s holding on before looking over her shoulder at Cassian. ‘On the count of three,’ she says, and he nods. Then she calls out,

‘We’re gonna pull you up on three.’

She can feel the rope shudder with the girl’s sobs.

‘One. Two. _Three._ ’ Jyn heaves, feeling Cassian doing the same thing behind her. The contraption they’d built takes some of the weight for them, but it’s still not an easy job, hauling a human being up a wall. Sweat burns in Jyn’s eyes, not particularly due to exertion and more a deep anxiety that when the rope reaches them the girl won’t be there. (It happened once. She won’t ever forget the look on that man’s face, lying on the ground, staring up at her. He died slowly.)

It takes several long minutes before, finally, she sees the top of the girl’s head passing the brick ledge of the wall, hears her wails louder and clearer. Jyn gives the rope a final tug and the girl tumbles onto the roof. Her whole body is shaking, the tu-tu she’s wearing that may have once been pink, covered in dust and blood spatters. Cassian has let go of the rope and is walking forward. He’s the one who deals with newcomers – a much more soothing presence than Jyn could ever hope to be. But the girl staggers to her feet and rushes past Cassian, instead throwing her arms around Jyn’s middle and pressing her face into her stomach. Jyn’s eyes widen in alarm. She brings her hands to rest on the girl’s shoulders, not wanting to push her away but not _knowing what to do_ either. She looks at Cassian. Resists the temptation to mouth, _help me._

Then she can feel the hot tears of the girl against her skin and something takes over – something makes her stoop down and pull the girl towards her so her little face is pressed into Jyn’s neck. She straightens up, the girl in her arms, and holds her as best she can. Tries to infuse a sense of reassurance into her hug.

They stand on the rooftop for a long time.

Eventually, amazingly, the girl falls asleep in Jyn’s arms. She knows because suddenly the warm weight in her arms goes slack, the sobs muffled on her shoulder cease. It’s only after that Jyn realizes she’s shaking. She doesn’t know if she can let go; her arms are stuck. There’s a little part of her that’s reluctant to do so, even if she was able. A part that wants to keep this young girl in her arms, protect her from all the horror’s she must have faced, she may still face.

The cave in her mind spits spitefully at her, and for one bitter moment she thinks about how no one ever held her and didn’t want to let go.

‘Jyn.’

She starts, turning to Cassian. She isn’t sure how much time has passed. It could have been hours, but he hasn’t moved. The sun has fully emerged over the lip of the earth, she can feel the heat of the day building already. Her mouth is dry.

‘Let’s get her inside,’ she says, and walks to the door.

An hour later, she seeks Cassian out.

‘Shouldn’t you be asleep?’

‘Shouldn’t you?’ Jyn counters, squatting down beside Cassian. For a moment, she can’t open her mouth.  It doesn’t help, the look he’s giving her, all expectant and patient like always. In the game of ‘who speaks first,’ Cassian always wins. He has, on the surface at least, endless amounts of patients. Except for when it comes to the battered set of UNO playing cards Bodhi found. But Jyn can out-stare anyone, so she considers them on a level playing field. She sighs. ‘I have to go.’

He sits up slowly, leaning against the wall. ‘Go where?’

‘Out. Leave. I have to leave.’

His gaze is hard, calculating. For a moment, he says nothing. His eyes train in on her expression, maybe doing whatever it is he does that lets him read her damn mind. Then he nods, pushing his threadbare sleeping bag away. ‘Ok. Where are we going?’

‘I’m not asking –’

‘I know,’ he cuts in. ‘Neither am I.’

Jyn glares at him for a full twenty seconds before she allows the spark of gratitude in her chest to blow into a full blaze. She would, of course, have left without him.

She didn’t want to though.

‘The girl.’ She gestures at where the little girl is lying, curled up on the floor near Baze and Chirrut’s sleeping bags. She put them there because she figured they’d be the most comforting for the girl to wake up and see – although she had hugged Jyn earlier. There’s no accounting for taste. ‘She deserves better. We need to find a cure.’

Cassian blinks once. Then he’s on his feet, already accepting her abrupt change of mind. His eyes blaze like she’s never seen before and she wants to touch his eyelids. She wants to see if it burns. ‘Morning is the best time to move,’ he says.

She nods. ‘We should go soon.’

+

They leave the next day. Cassian can see the impatience running deep in Jyn’s bones, but he is resolute. They missed their window, leaving any time after the middle of the day would be a suicide mission. And they have people counting on them. Kay and Bodhi decide to come too. Not that either of them were informed of the plan, Bodhi walked in on Jyn gathering supplies and Kay was in the right place at the right time – roof duty before they set off. They don’t take much – food shouldn’t be too hard to find if they’re on the road because zee’s don’t need to eat dried fruit packets from 7-11 – just enough to keep them going for a few days. And water. Neither Jyn nor Cassian discuss how long they plan on being gone. It’s not necessary. Cassian knows that when Jyn gets out the only way she’ll come back is if they find a cure. Otherwise she would rather die out in the open then live squashed up in the library.

Cassian himself doesn’t intend to come back without something to help the people around him. And he is, as Kay says, ‘dangerously stubborn.’

It’s probably lucky Bodhi and Kay are coming too, to act as stabilizers against Jyn’s blaze and Cassian’s simmer.

The plan for escape is simple – wait until the early hours of the morning, slide down the rope from the roof and _run._ One thing they’ve learnt about the zee’s in the seven months since they appeared, they are strangely inactive between sunrise and the middle of the day. Still dangerous, but slower moving. Apparently even zombies need to take breaks every now and again.

It’s easy to leave. Probably because, even though one of the rules of the library is that you can’t venture outside, it’s assumed that no one is stupid enough to _want_ to leave it and its dusty safety. That’s what Kay says after they’ve found their first campsite. He looks pointedly at Jyn, but she’s ignoring him. Too busy gazing around at the stretches of deserted street around them. There’s a stillness to her that Cassian has never seen before. She stretches her hands out behind her and leans back on them, looking up at the dilapidated sky scrapers.

It’s almost impressive how quickly the biggest cities fell, how easily they descended into chaos. In the distance, the zee’s groan. Jyn balances her knife on the ground on its tip. Cassian closes his eyes.

Then a familiar song starts up, bouncing off the crumbling buildings around him and he looks at Jyn.

‘You brought it.’

She smirks a little. ‘Aren’t you glad I did?’

He tries very hard not to allow his lips to twitch. When he first met Jyn Erso, she had been lying on the roof listening to _you ain’t nothing but a hound dog._ Now, for as long as he lives, Elvis’ crooning voice will forever be associated with the curl of Jyn’s dark hair, her quick laugh, the hollow of her neck.

Elvis is quickly becoming a favourite musician of his.

‘Not particularly.’

Jyn shows her teeth. She’s so much looser now that she’s on the move again. She exists with more ease. Fit’s inside her body better. Before she had been too big, too full of impatience and frustration and it had shown in the way she pressed against her own skin, desperate for any kind of freedom. Now she sinks back into the dark sky and sighs.

They last almost thirteen hours before their first real encounter. Jyn has paused in a fairly intact looking public toilet to fill up her drink bottle and Cassian is standing by the door, shading his eyes. Bodhi and Kay have similar positions around the small building, each on the lookout. Jyn appears without incident, waving her newly filled drink bottle and behind them Kay calls out,

‘Zee’s!’

Cassian doesn’t hesitate. He grabs the iron pipe that had been leaning on the wall beside him and races around to join his friend. Kay is putting up a decent fight with the bat he’d stolen from a sports shop earlier that day, but more zee’s are pressing down on them and in a few more seconds it would have been too many to handle alone. Cassian steps in, raises the pipe, and swings. The first zee he takes down easily, it was focused on Kay, and his pipe connects with the side of its head. It stumbles back and falls, another zee moves forward. He ducks the arm thrown his way (a literal arm, it started out as a swipe in his direction and then skin and bone were disconnecting from a shoulder and it became a lonely projectile), and knocks out the zee’s legs from under it. Another one down. Bodhi and Jyn have joined now too and the four of them stand in a tight circle, back to back in the middle of the crowd of zee’s.  

They’re lucky – there are less than twenty zee’s closing in around them and they’re able to take down most of them. The rest amble aimlessly in their direction, but it’s not a tight knit group anymore. There’s space enough to run, which Cassian does, Jyn and the others not far behind him.

Their next hideout is a shopping centre. Bodhi forces open the door and whistles when he enters. It’s strangely intact, and they quickly settle in what used to be a book shop. It doesn’t take much for Cassian to sink back into the pattern he’d taken before finding sanctuary in the library. When he and Bodhi go to the supermarket for food, he doesn’t even think before grabbing cloth and duct tape. There are two whole roles shoved under one of the aisles in the supermarket and that night they wrap themselves in cotton reinforced with the silvery tape. Cassian rips the last strip with his teeth and pats it down on his arm, covering the last line of exposed skin with the pseudo-armor. Now only his hand is bare. He flexes his fingers. Thanks whoever it is up there that there was duct tape left in the shop. Tries not to remember what happened last time he was out on his own (except he hadn’t been on his own, had he, not in the beginning). Reaches absently for the pipe at his side and shifts it a little closer. Jyn slides down the wall to sit beside him and nods at the weapon.

‘I need one of them,’ she says. Cassian glances at it. Blood is drying on the metal, giving the impression that it’s rusted.

‘You have a knife.’

‘You can have more than one weapon.’

‘Well you’ve got your razor-sharp wit.’

Jyn quirks an eyebrow at him. ‘You’re funny,’ she says, nudging him.

‘Between Kay and me, someone had to have a sense of humour.’

‘Or he’d have been murdered by now.’ She nods, and across the room Kay scowls openly at her.

‘If someone here is going to get murdered it’ll be you, Jyn Erso.’

‘I’ll die when you refer to me by my first name alone.’

‘Well, if it’s that easy.’

Bodhi says, ‘guys.’

Silence falls – or at least silence between the four of them. It’s never truly silent anymore. Cassian misses that more than he’ll admit. He looks out through the shop’s display window. There’s a gathering outside. They’re moving without purpose or direction – but that won’t last long. Something you had to learn and learn quick was the slow shamble of a zee is deceptive. If it senses a meal, it is determined. Never underestimate the power of sheer, unclouded drive. He reaches for his pipe and gets to his feet, around him the others do the same. Jyn unsheaths her knife, and Bodhi turns to face the others.

‘Aim for the door we came in through. Go quickly,’ he whispers. Cassian holds up three fingers. Two fingers. One finger.

They run out into the mall corridor, shoving zee’s aside, not even bothering to finish them off. It’s only one floor which is both a blessing and a curse – less space to navigate, less zee’s needed to block their path. Kay is in front, swinging. His head bobs above most of the zee’s and Cassian follows the sight of it, Kay cutting through the crowd. He’s a few steps from the door when

_Something. Pierces. His. Skin._

He can’t stop moving. Pushes forward out into the night. Follows Kay and Bodhi and Jyn as they sprint through straggling zee’s. The corners of his vision flicker with static, throbbing to the time of his heartbeat.

It’s only when they reach an abandoned apartment building that they stop. Kay pushes open the door and ushers the others in. Cassian walks quickly to the bathroom and locks the door behind him. He doesn’t allow himself any time to gather the courage to look, he just does it.

There’s a half-circle of broken skin on his right hand. On the palm, almost perfectly mapping the life-line that curves around his thumb. It’s bleeding, but only slightly. Not a deep wound – a set of shallow puncture marks. Just enough to turn him.

Cassian sinks onto the edge of the bathtub. He’s still staring at his hand, studying the skin intently. Now not for any reason other than it’s easier than anything else he could do right now. The skin around the bite is whitening slightly, it looks –

Well, it looks dead.

Cassian allows himself one deep breath before he gets to his feet and opens the door of the bathroom. He has to tell the others, has to warn him so they can get rid of him before he turns and bites them all as well. He opens his mouth, and suddenly Jyn is at his side.

‘Can I speak to you a moment,’ she asks, the words brittle in her mouth. She grabs his uninjured hand before he can say anything and pulls him out onto the street. Cassian glances around to make sure they’re alone as they step outside, but Jyn doesn’t bother. She leans against the wall of the house and looks at him.

‘I saw,’ she says simply.

Cassian doesn’t have to ask what she means. It’s almost a relief – he doesn’t have to tell her at least. He nods.     

‘So, what do you think?’

‘About what?’

‘Well.’ He shrugs. ‘You have two options. Leave me and go. Or kill me, here and now.’

Jyn hasn’t blinked for over a minute. She’s just staring.

‘What?’ she says. The skin around her mouth has tightened.

‘Jyn.’ Of all of them, he’d expected her to understand. Maybe even do the honors, not that he’d ever ask her to.

_‘Oh ho, my darling, I am true // Doin' the best, the best I can.’_

Maybe she’ll play some Elvis for him before he goes. Jyn is shaking her head.

‘I won’t kill you,’ she bites out. ‘Cassian, I’m not going to kill you.’

‘Then leave.’

‘No.’

‘Jyn.’

‘I won’t.’

 Cassian doesn’t realize he’s shouting until the word has left his mouth. ‘Go!’

'No!’ Jyn shouts back, her volume matching his. Their faces are very close. 'I am _not_ leaving you, you understand?’

'I’m _infected_.’ Cassian thrusts his hand out, blood lining the creases of his palm. 'I’m going to turn, Jyn. You have. To. Leave. Me.’

‘I won’t,’ Jyn says. Her eyes flicker between his own, he can feel her breath on his face. She’s breathing very quickly. She grabs his hand with both of hers and holds it achingly tight. 'Cassian. You are staying with us.’

'But-’

'I won’t kill you now, but I _will_ before you turn,’ she says, and her voice doesn’t break. She doesn’t look away. 'I won’t let you turn. I promise. But you have six hours until that happens and I swear to god I am not leaving you a minute before I have to _do you understand_.’

Cassian swallows. 'Jyn-’

That’s when she kisses him.

His hand and hers wrapped around it are trapped between them as she surges forwards and presses her lips to his.

It’s an angry kiss, not gentle or forgiving. It’s a kiss that says, _you better not leave me_. When she pulls back, her eyes are as fierce as her lips had been.

'Any more bright ideas?’ she says. Her gaze is hard, but he feels her fingers trembling. He can’t speak. He licks his lips (he tastes of _her_ ) and shakes his head. She nods, a stiff movement, and steps away. Cassian pulls his infected hand towards his chest and tries not to want her to come back. He clears his throat.

‘We should go back inside.’

Jyn nods again. She turns on her heels and stalks away from him into the house.

When Cassian pushes open the door, Bodhi isn’t staring at him. Instead his eyes are flickering in Cassian’s direction and then shifting away. Kay is on his feet.

‘There was yelling,’ he says as soon as Cassian has closed the door behind him.

‘There was,’ Cassian agrees. Jyn appears by his side, a piece of ripped bedsheet in her hand.

‘Here,’ she says brusquely. Kay frowns.

‘Cassian, you’re hurt?’

‘Cut himself on some glass,’ Jyn says before Cassian can reply. ‘Like an idiot.’

That comment mollifies Kay somewhat, who spends most of his time admonishing Cassian for being just that. He nods. ‘Wrap it up or it could get infected.’   

Cassian scowls at Jyn. He has to tell the others – what if the time comes and Jyn isn’t around to take care of him? He would rather die (and that seems to be the situation at hand) than bring any harm to them. Jyn scowls right back. She says abruptly to the room at large – ‘I’m going to sleep.’

Cassian watches her go. Then he says, ‘me too,’ and darts off in the direction Jyn had vanished. She doesn’t go far, just to a bedroom across the hall. When he reaches her, she’s sitting on the end of a perfectly made bed, staring at the wall. He knocks, even though the door is open. She doesn’t look at him. She just says,

‘I haven’t seen sheets this white in a long time.’

They are impressively clean; Cassian has to admit. A bit dusty, but without blood spatters. He sits down next to her, not close enough to touch.

‘Did my bandages come from this bed?’

She nods. Then she turns slightly. ‘What do you know about the turning process?’ she asks, with almost clinical detachment. Cassian rubs his thumb over the soft bedspread, and considers.

‘Takes six hours,’ he recites, ‘The victim is alive until the final three hours.’

‘Then the victim appears dead until the final hour is up and they stand again – another member of the undead,’ Jyn finishes, nodding. ‘We have two hours until then.’

Cassian shifts slightly. Two hours. He has two hours left.

‘What should we do?’ he asks, voice slightly hoarse. Jyn studies him.

‘What do you want to do?’

_See my mother. Kiss you until I forget what not kissing you feels like. Sleep._

‘Listen to Elvis,’ he says. Jyn’s mouth is as soft as he’s ever seen it when she smiles at him. She pulls the ipod from her pocket and sets it down a pillow.

‘Song request?’

‘Surprise me,’ he says.

‘Tall order.’

The music is quieter than usual. Jyn says,

‘Now I have something I want to do.’

Then she adds, ‘it’s not sex.’ Cassian laughs.

It’s cards. Jyn brought with her a whole deck, and for the last two hours of his life Cassian Andor sits on a dusty bed in someone else’s home, listening to Elvis and playing card games with Jyn Erso. It’s – silly. And fun. And Jyn laughs when he beats her in go fish and Cassian swears Jyn was cheating when she wins a game of spit and they both forget, for one hundred and twenty whole minutes, that the world around them is dying.

Then they remember.

Cassian sits on the bed, staring down at his palm. The blood has soaked through the make-shift bandage now and he hates _waiting._ He opens his mouth to ask Jyn to just – just finish it, and then clamps his lips together. He can’t do that to her. She must have noticed, because she says shortly,

‘I’ll do it. Don’t worry.’

She’s withdrawing – he can tell. Gearing up to protect herself. He can’t blame her, not really. He wants to say something to her – anything – and then the vomiting starts.

He rushes to the bathroom, doubled over, and throws up until he’s shaking too badly too remain standing. He slips onto his knees and stays there, breathing heavily. Jyn is by his side, her hand on his back rubbing up and down and Cassian thinks, almost irritated, _no one said there would be vomiting._

He heaves forward again, and behind him Jyn’s hand is progressively less steady. _Kill me,_ he thinks. It’s not long now. _Kill me, kill me, kill me,_

He vomits again, and this time when he’s leaning away from the toilet bowl and wiping his mouth, the edge of his vision is starting to blur. He looks around almost wildly, searching for Jyn. She hasn’t moved. Her eyes are very bright. She hands him a glass of water, and he sips it until his throat works again.

‘The others,’ he manages. ‘Kay. I need to –’ _say goodbye._ She nods and gets to her feet, leaving Cassian on the floor with his eyes closed, hoping, hoping that he’ll last long enough to see Kay.

No such luck.

The world fades.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then it comes back.

Cassian jerks upwards.

The sun is warm through the windows, and the sky outside is very, very blue. He is alone. Cassian stares down at his hand. The wound is still there, blood crusted over, thick brownish lines across his palm. He feels – fine. Better even. There’s strength in his limbs and when he closes his eyes he can see the dull flickering light of the zee’s. Like tiny fireworks. He clenches his fist.

_Jyn was supposed to shoot me._

But she didn’t, and now he’s here. Clearly not turned but – different somehow. He peers into the dull bathroom mirror and under his eyes there are two discolored smudges, like the skin has died. He runs the pad of his finger over the skin. It _feels_ normal. And he definitely hasn’t turned. Cassian steps out into the main room of the small apartment. Jyn and the others are gone – how long ago they left he doesn’t know. It could have been days. Outside he sees a few zee’s and stiffens – then stops. He’s already been bitten. Now what? What happens if they bite him again? Will he stay… unturned?

It’s not exactly something he wants to test. But he can’t stay in the apartment. He looks around. They left his pipe behind. He frowns at that, hadn’t Jyn wanted another weapon? He picks it up anyway. Readies himself. Steps outside.

The zee’s – ignore him. Well, not exactly. They swing their dead eyes around to face him, mumbling with rotting gums, but none of them move towards him. He can see, like he could before, the dull blue glow of the zee’s lights. It shines inside them. He has one too, he realizes. A light. It’s a little brighter, a little livelier, but not by much. _That’s interesting._ He begins to walk, cautiously through the zee’s, and again none of them make chase. One brushes it’s hand over his top, another falls to the ground with a dull thud. He glances back to see it begin to pick itself up.

He keeps walking.

It’s only when he reaches the library that he realizes that was his destination all along. He doesn’t know why he expects Jyn to be there – when they’d left, she didn’t seem as though she would ever go back. But… it’s his best bet for finding her. And then he’s standing there, and he’s almost blinded by the lights from the humans. They burn and bounce and shiver like nothing he’s ever seen before, and he realizes, watching them, that that’s how the zee’s find them. It almost makes sense. Anyone would be drawn to them.

Then he hears, familiar, the call from above.

‘Grab the rope!’ Jyn is yelling, he tilts his face up and his eyes meet hers. She freezes. The rope is already a little over half-way down, well within his reach. He grasps it, and, because Jyn has disappeared, starts to pull himself up. He’s sweating when he’s finally able to peer over onto the roof. Jyn starts. Kay is there too, and Jyn is standing near the door holding a gun. She levels it as his head as he pushes himself over the ledge and onto the roof, her eyes narrowing. Cassian licks his lips.

‘Wait,’ he says, and Jyn flinches.

‘This is new,’ she says, her voice rough. Cassian can see her finger tense on the trigger.

‘Wait,’ he says again, ‘Jyn–’

‘Shut up!’ Jyn screams suddenly. She isn’t shaking. She’s perfectly still. ‘Just shut up!’

‘Jyn,’ Kay says loudly, ‘I don’t think zee’s can speak.’

‘But he –’ Jyn doesn’t lower her weapon. Her grip on the gun looks almost bruising. Her gaze is thick and volatile. Cassian says,

‘Jyn.’

She spits, ‘what?’

‘How long has it been?’

‘Three weeks. It’s been three weeks,’ she says. ‘You’re all zee now, Andor.’ ‘

‘But zee’s don’t do this,’ Kay says. He doesn’t sound distressed exactly, but his voice is definitely strained. ‘Zee’s can’t talk. Or climb.’

Jyn shakes her head. ‘Maybe they can now.’

‘Or,’ says Cassian, ‘maybe I’m not a zee.’

There’s a pause while everyone lets that sink in. Jyn still hasn’t pointed the gun away from him.

‘What if this is a mutation of the virus?’ she says. ‘A new way to get us killed.’

‘I’m not a zee,’ Cassian says. He should be. God knows he should be, he should be a mindless zombie like everyone else they’d seen get bitten but it’s nearly been a month now and he _isn’t._ He’s _still here._ ‘Jyn. Believe me.’

‘How –’ Jyn’s gaze is slightly wild now. She runs a hand through her hair, leaving it rumpled. ‘How would that even – how could you even –’

 ‘Cowpox,’ he says. The gun in Jyn’s grip lowers slightly. She gapes at him. ‘There was a sickness before – smallpox, and there were people who never caught it because they caught _cowpox_ from milking cows – it was a natural vaccination. So, zombie-cowpox. Or – something. A mutation, you’re right, but not something that’s going to kill us. Something that’s going to _save_ us Jyn.’

‘What?’ she says. Her voice is hollowed-out, like she’s been punched in the stomach. ‘But – how – of all the –’

Cassian is nodding. ‘I know,’ he says, ‘I know. But Jyn – I’m not a zee. And I was bitten.’ He squints. ‘Do I look like a zee?’

Jyn shakes her head, the gun all but falling to her side. ‘Except – there.’ She gestures at his face, and he nods. The patches under his eyes. ‘So you –’ she pauses. Her gaze flickers over him, alighting finally on his face. ‘You’re… you?’

He doesn’t have time to do much more than nod again before she’s thrown her gun aside and slammed herself into him. Her arms are around his neck again, her face pushed into his throat and she’s muttering a stream of curses and promises – ‘if you _ever pull shit like that again I will fucking kill you,_ ’ and Cassian almost laughs.

‘I think I know for a fact that you won’t.’ 

‘Shut the fuck up,’ she says, her voice muffled as her lips press against his skin. ‘Shut the fuck up, Cassian.’

In the doorway, Kay is saying in his ‘I-am-relieved-beyond-belief’ voice,

‘I will inform everyone of this… turn of events.’

 ‘Tell him we’ve got a lead on a cure,’ Cassian says, and he feels Jyn’s grip on him tighten.

‘If you say, ‘I told you so,’,’ she growls, ‘I –’

Cassian doesn’t say that. He slips his hand under her chin and tilts her head up and kisses her, instead.

_Then_ he says, ‘I told you so.’


End file.
